1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of multimedia creation and presentation apparatuses and processes, and more particularly to an interactive method for annotating a multimedia work.
2. Background Art
"Multimedia" is a term used to describe the combined use of different kinds of information storage and/or communication media. Examples of information storage media include books, phonograph records, audio and video tapes, microfilm, and magnetic and optical disks. Examples of communication media include written words ("text"), still pictures ("graphics"), sounds ("audio") moving pictures ("video"), light, live performances, and other forms of expression that can be perceived or sensed, including such things as smell and feel. Common examples of multimedia works include magazines and illustrated books (combining text and graphics), movies (combining audio and video), and laser light shows (combining lights, live acting, and sound).
Personal computers typically have the capability to provide information by means of multiple forms of media. Depending on its sophistication and configuration, a personal computer can typically display information in text or pictorial form (either still or animated) on a display screen and can emit sounds through a loudspeaker. Accordingly, computers tend to have some multimedia capabilities. In the past, however, the use of the multimedia potential of personal computers has been limited. To some extent this limited use has been dictated by limitations on the amount of memory that could be addressed by and the computational speed of the central processing units of the computers. These limitations were especially relevant to full motion video, which requires a large amount of memory and computational capacity.
As performance of personal computers has improved, so has their ability to more fully utilize multimedia. One area in which multimedia applications for personal computers have been developing is in what can be referred to as the "audio-visualization" of literary and other artistic works. One prior art example is a multimedia encyclopedia in which the text and illustrations found in a book version of an encyclopedia are supplemented on a computer with audio and video segments or "clips". Like an encyclopedia in book form, a computer based encyclopedia may contain entries for a variety of separate topics. For example, there may be an entries for topics such as "Shakespeare", "Dinosaurs", "Olympics", and others. For an entry such as "Shakespeare", for example, in addition to the text and pictorial entries contained in the written encyclopedia, the computer based encyclopedia may also provide an audio clip of an actor reading lines from a Shakespearean play and a video clip of a Shakespearean performance.
Each media segment described above (that is, a piece of text, an illustration, an audio or video clip) may be referred to as a "media event" or simply an "event". For example, the text entry that is displayed under any topic of the computer based encyclopedia described above may be referred to as a "text event". Any illustration displayed may be referred to as a "graphic event". Any audio segment displayed may be considered to be a "audio event". And any video segment displayed may be considered to be a "video event".
If more than one media event is available for a particular topic, a procedure must be implemented to determine when and how the various media events are presented to the user. Referring back to the "Shakespeare" example described above, one possibility is to have the text event be the default media event, that is, the first event that would ordinarily be presented when a topic is queried. The other media events available would be listed on a menu on the computer display. A user, who in this instance may also be referred to as a "reader", can call up the other available media events through the execution of an appropriate keyboard, mouse, or other command. It may also be possible to display more than one media event simultaneously.
More than one of each kind of media event may be available for each topic. For example, in addition to a video clip of a Shakespearean play, video clips of an eminent scholar discussing the significance of "Macbeth" or of the English countryside may be included under the topic "Shakespeare".
In prior art multimedia works, the media events associated with a particular topic are predetermined by the author of the work. The author decides what events to use, where to use them, and how to present them to the reader. Once the author has decided what events to use for a particular topic, appropriate computer programming codes are written into the software that drives the multimedia work fixing the author's choices. Once the programming of a work is complete, the arrangement of topics and media events can generally only be changed by reprogramming. The reader is presented with a fixed work, and has no choice as to what events may be associated with what topics.